


De Britannicum Romanum Factum

by goldenegg31



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-21
Updated: 2012-03-21
Packaged: 2017-11-02 07:59:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenegg31/pseuds/goldenegg31
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before he travels with the Doctor, Rory doesn't like the Aeneid, but Roranicus does. Later, Rory doesn't know what he thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	De Britannicum Romanum Factum

**Author's Note:**

> Note about the Title: De Britannicum Romanum Factum could mean either “about the British man who was made Roman” or “about the Roman man who was made British.” Latin, particularly Latin poetry, does not rely on word order to show how a word is used in the sentence the way English does. However, nouns usually come right after prepositions, so the first translation would be more favored.
> 
> So this fic is apparently what happens when you study The Aeneid for an entire semester and are a huge fan of Doctor Who. Since I’m a history major, I feel compelled to tell you that that class that inspired this fic by forcing me to think about The Aeneid pretty much every day for a semester used Robert Fitzgerald’s translation of The Aeneid. Thanks to my friend ElementalLiz on fanfiction.net for betaing and helping me find a good title and summary.

When they are in school, neither Rory nor Amy likes The Aeneid. Rory doesn’t like Aeneas: he doesn’t understand how anyone could blindly follow another person the way Aeneas does, even if they are a god. Going off to a land you know nothing about, where you might have to fight a war just because someone who is really powerful tells you to just doesn’t seem sensible to him. Amy makes it to the end of Book IV and starts yelling that if Aeneas had really cared about Dido, he would have come back for her. Her Aunt takes her to psychiatrist number #4. Rory throws away his copy of the book, he doesn’t want to read anything that made Amy cry.

Roranicus likes The Aeneid. Of course he does, he’s an educated Roman and Virgil is the preeminent Roman poet. Roranicus is as much a Roman solider as he is a twenty-first century British nurse; his travels with the Doctor and Amy still seem like a dream sometimes. This is useful when thieves try to steal the Pandorica, which becomes more valuable as its legend grows. When he finally sees the Doctor again, he knows he won’t tell him or Amy about all the thieves he’s stopped. Rory himself is sometimes slightly shocked when he looks back. He might not be a doctor, but “first, do no harm” is still a part of who he is. He wonders if it was that way for the Doctor, once.

Rory can’t decide if he likes The Aeneid or not. He tries reading the copy from the Doctor’s massive library one night after Amy has fallen asleep, but stops quickly. The box inside his brain with all his Roman knowledge has opened and is telling him exactly how different this poetic English translation is from the original Latin. He sighs, gets up, and asks the Doctor (who is awake, of course) if he has a Latin copy. The Doctor gives him a long look and shows him the sections of the library in other languages. Rory wonders if it’s a coincidence that they pass the sections in the languages of all the countries where the Pandorica stayed. 

\----------

The Doctor is the last of the Time Lords. Rory understands this in an academic way; he can’t even imagine how The Doctor feels. He doesn’t want to upset the Doctor, so he never asks. He’s not as pushy as Amy; he understands that sometimes people don’t want to talk about things.

Roranicus is the last centurion. Throughout the first few centuries guarding the Pandorica, Rory knows the Roman Empire will fall, but Roranicus can’t quite believe it. Even during the reigns of bad emperors, there is still a part of Roranicus that remains loyal to Rome. He can’t help it; his father (who didn’t exist) told him loyalty to the state is a major part of being a good Roman. Even though he knows it’s coming, he’s still in shock when the Goths invade Rome itself. He gets over it though, and makes sure the Pandorica itself is safe (loyalty to one’s family – another important Roman virtue). During the long centuries that he watches over the Pandorica, he reads The Aeneid many times – it’s a little bit of his vanished home. He wonders if that’s how the Doctor feels about the books at the back of the library – the ones with the circular writing that matches the circles on the screen in the console room – the ones the TARDIS doesn’t translate. 

Rory is a perfectly ordinary British man. But he remembers when he wasn’t, so he still doesn’t ask about the Doctor’s life before they met. He doesn’t have to imagine how the Doctor feels: he knows. 

\------

During the two years after the Doctor saved them from Prisoner Zero and the Atraxi, but before he came back, Rory doesn’t sit around and do nothing. Amy believes that all they have to do is wait and the Doctor will return. But Rory reads about ways a small blue box could be bigger-on-the-inside and does Google searches like “the doctor blue box.” He wants to know who his girlfriend’s not-so-imaginary friend is. So he is the one who meets some of the Doctor’s friends and hears their stories –hears what they have done for him and what they have lived through. Part of him hopes the Doctor never comes back: Rory doesn’t want to find out what Amy would do for him or what might happen to her. Martha Jones tells him that the Doctor is wonderful, that the time she spent travelling with him was the best of her life, but even she admits that when you travel with the Doctor, eventually someone always get hurt.

During the two thousand years that Roranicus watches over the Pandorica, there are a lot of times he has nothing to do but sit around. That’s when he reads and rereads The Aeneid. He understands plodding, pious Aeneas much better than Rory did when he was in school. He likes that Virgil’s hero is a moral guy more than an action hero or someone who always saves the day by being cleverer than everyone else. 

When Rory and Amy Pond are travelling with the Doctor, there’s hardly any time to sit around and do nothing. But when he does have time to reread The Aeneid, he skips Book IV. He doesn’t have to be told what happens to those left behind when someone is completely devoted to something or someone. He doesn’t like it, but he understands the Doctor a little better now – there are some things that are important enough that you can’t (or won’t) worry about any possible costs. For the Doctor that something is trying to help others; for Rory it’s Amy. It’s always been Amy; for Rory when they were in school, and for Roranicus during those long centuries when he watched over the Pandorica. And it will always be Amy.


End file.
